letters to nobody #5: piece of me

darling nobody,

my host mother’s cellphone here has the same ringtone as my mom’s. every time her phone rings, i am suddenly back in india, and my mom is asking me to check who’s calling.

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the homesickness arrives four days after i do. it’s unexpected, but also entirely expected. i suddenly cannot talk about my family without feeling a lump in my throat, followed by tears- which is inconvenient, to say the least. i begin to wish i was back home- and it’s strange, how homesickness works.

when i leave school after a long day, i think of my bunk bed back at home and somehow, believe that’s where i’m going. it’s the only thought that comforts me, but then i remember i’m not in india anymore, and i won’t be- for a long, long time. i sleep in another bed, and i won’t see my room until june next year. it feels an eternity away.

i regret coming here, a world away from home. i keep thinking of my family- would i be eating dinner now in india, would i skip college today, maybe i should’ve stayed. some of my worst days at home begin to look good to me, they feel peaceful even if they weren’t. the things that angered me the most at home now seem like minor inconveniences, something i wouldn’t complain about at all now. it feels like the train station is still an hour away, and i can catch a train and be back, where I belong.

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i wake up one night at two in the morning, thinking i’m back at home, in india. i didn’t know things like this could happen to me, i believed it was something that happened only in books. i am not fully awake, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness- but i’m slowly awakening, my brain beginning to work again. my heart sinks. the pain i feel in my chest when i realize i’m not in india is indescribable. it’s going to be okay, i tell myself, and drift back to sleep.

it happens twice again that night.

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i think of my family constantly, and the pain in my chest becomes more permanent. every time i see a child with their parents, i have to fight back tears. i cling onto the time when i last saw them at the airport, and wonder if i will ever fully process that i’m not going to see them for a year. i fantasize about going back in june, seeing them again at the airport after ten whole months, and never leaving home again.

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my host mother is explaining to me that spanish classes begin next week, and i suddenly break down without warning. she’s a little taken aback, and i explain between sobs that it’s nothing, i just miss my family a lot. she comforts me with a hug, and i go up to my room and sob again.

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it’s little things sometimes.

someone says something, and i think to myself: this isn’t how it would happen at home.

someone complains about the roads here, and i’m suddenly driving to the metro station, my father laughing about how the roads are just a free rollercoaster ride.

i’m in school, seated alone, and i think of college: how i was constantly surrounded by friends who never failed to make me feel like the happiest person in the world.

i see fairy lights twinkling in the dark of the night and i’m suddenly back at prithvi theatre, content and happier than i’ve ever been.

i’m walking out of school, and suddenly the breeze makes me feel like i’m in my old school in india, ready to leave for the day.

it’s the little things sometimes. and it’s the little things that hurt the most.

darling nobody,

it’ll be ages before i see these places again. i don’t want you to go there, but if you happen to, please remember that a piece of me lies there.

the sky isn’t blue anymore- it’s a washed out white, fading away with me.

x